What Happens In Vegas

The popular expression, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” conjures up a veritable jackpot of shed inhibitions, insane indulgence, and gleeful debauchery. And if you can remember any of it, you probably weren’t there.But what would happen if a few crazy–okay, hugely inebriated–moments in Sin City not only didn’t “stay” there but also followed you all the way back home and threatened to turn your life upside down? That’s the setup that explodes into a series of outrageous consequences for two sexy, if wildly mismatched, strangers in the comedy “What Happens In Vegas”. For charismatic party guy Jack Fuller (ASHTON KUTCHER) and buttoned-up commodities trader Joy McNally (CAMERON DIAZ), a rowdy weekend coincidentally shared in Las Vegas should have, by all rights, ended up being little more than a random blur. That is, if these two vacationing New Yorkers didn’t have a signed marriage license staring them in the face to shockingly remind them of the giant misstep they took while feeling no pain, Vegas-style. Stacking the deck, not only did Jack and Joy tie the knot after tying one on, but later scored a mind-blowing three million bucks in a slot machine bonanza. Well, Jack won it with Joy’s quarter. At the machine she’d already been playing. Or was it the other way around? And whose loot is it anyway? Therein lies the weird hand dealt this bickering duo who take their predicament back to Manhattan only to be sentenced by the intractable Judge Whopper (DENNIS MILLER) to “six months hard marriage.” Despite the hapless protests of Jack’s best friend and legal counsel Steve “Hater” Hader (ROB CORDDRY), Whopper refuses to grant Jack and Joy an annulment, freezes the prize booty, and forces the irresponsible couple to prove they have done everything humanly possible to make their impromptu marriage work. This includes co-habitation, weekly counseling sessions, and doing something the old school Whopper believes Jack and Joy’s “generation” hates to do: try. Otherwise, the judge guarantees, the three million bucks will stay caught up in a legal battle so long and expensive no one but the lawyers will ever see a penny of it. I now pronounce you man and wife. For real. Jack and Joy figure, “Fine, how hard can it be” and take the bait only to find themselves locked in a hilarious, patience-testing, panties-twisting game of wild one-upmanship–may the best “pretend spouse” win. The battle of the sexes has never had a pair of gladiators like Jack and Joy, not to mention their partners in crime–Jack’s hair-trigger buddy “Hater” and Joy’s take-no-prisoners gal pal Tipper (LAKE BELL), who despise each other with almost as much venom as do Jack and Joy. Throw in Jack’s demanding father, Jack, Sr. (TREAT WILLIAMS); Joy’s hard-driving boss, Banger (DENNIS FARINA); her snooty ex-fiance, Mason (JASON SUDEIKIS); and a savvy shrink named Dr. Twitchell (QUEEN LATIFAH), and pretty soon there’s a whole team of folks making Jack and Joy’s frantic charade that much crazier. Can Jack and Joy survive their six months of “wedded bliss”–without killing each other first–and ultimately cash in for the big payoff? Or will the fiery sparks that ricochet between them actually ignite, turning a fake relationship into something astonishingly real? In the end, what happens in “What Happens In Vegas” may prove the biggest surprise of all.